Sony has begun offering $500 trade-in bonuses on Dell notebooks and paying solution providers additional incentives reports informationWeek.

"I think that's actually great," said Andrew Krantz, senior account manager at Westwood Computer, a solution provider and Sony partner based in Springfield, N.J. "Anything that targets Dell is good. Dell has a unique way of stealing business, so any way we could steal business back is positive."

Sony's trade-in offer of $500 for working Dell systems tops the $300 it provides for trade-ins on all other systems for Vaio BX series notebooks. Sony said the rebate can be claimed by solution providers for their clients.